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<title>Starlight As Our Chandelier by pattylittledistance (OhTheTerrifyingRarityOfTruth)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26440537">Starlight As Our Chandelier</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhTheTerrifyingRarityOfTruth/pseuds/pattylittledistance'>pattylittledistance (OhTheTerrifyingRarityOfTruth)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>As It Is (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Based on an As It Is song, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hugs, January specifically because Blenheim Place makes me die, Nostalgia, Rachel Foley Ali and two random grumpy old people are mentioned but theyre not actually there, a 2102 word love letter to my hometown, it's all just soft okay? because I love them and they deserve it, kind of? they go outside, lots of them because it's Patty and Ben what do you expect, quarantine fic, shout out to brighton i love u babe, this is 2102 words of me pining but turned into a fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:07:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,102</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26440537</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhTheTerrifyingRarityOfTruth/pseuds/pattylittledistance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben cries a lot, sings a little, gets an unexpected visitor and goes to the beach. Patty hugs a lot, talks a little, surprises an old friend and goes to the beach. It's not surprising that they always end up in the same place.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Benjamin Langford-Biss &amp; Patty Walters, Benjamin Langford-Biss/Patty Walters, could go either way I didn't write it with one in mind</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Starlight As Our Chandelier</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I've just been Feeling Things while listening to existential meditation and blenheim place, and it seems like this is the outcome. And a PSA: neither of those are good to be listening to when you're homesick. Don't do it. I'm in tears.</p>
<p>Title from January by As It Is</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">When the doorbell goes, Ben doesn’t expect it. Why would he? The postman has already been, he hasn’t ordered anything recently, and most of his friends know to call instead these days because he’s so often busy and it’s not like they can visit each other. Still, it’s a rare moment when he has nothing to do so he sighs, gets up and goes to open the door.</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Hey!”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">Ben stops dead in the doorway. In front of him, silhouetted by the unnaturally blue sky of a summer day in Sussex, stands Patty </span>
  <em>
    <span class="tm6">motherfucking</span>
  </em>
  <span class="tm5"> Walters, his black hair whipping in the coastal breeze and a blood red mask concealing an infectious grin Ben knows is there. Ben stands speechless for a few moments more before smiling back and relaxing a little.</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Patty! Wait, give me a sec, I’ll just go grab my mask if you want to come in.” He turns to grab the mask in question hanging on a hook in the hallway.</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Dude, it’s fine, I haven’t left the house in weeks and I know you probably haven’t either. Plus the government will let me visit you now so it’s not like your neighbours are going to call the police on us.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“You have no idea what my neighbours might do. The old lady two doors down has been taking this way too seriously. She stormed out of her house in, like, a full hazmat suit last week when the Tesco delivery came by. Hey, do you want a drink? I could put the kettle on if you wanted.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">Patty unhooked his mask and followed Ben through to the kitchen, answering, “I’ll just have a glass of water, thanks. We’ve got a guy like that on our street too, but mostly he just scowls and stirs soup at you angrily through the kitchen window if someone comes over.” He hopped onto the counter next to the stove, smiling and chattering happily while Ben busied himself with filling up the kettle and a glass at the sink. </span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“I was actually going to come over earlier this morning but Tirra threw up and I had to clean up the floor again. Lucky it was just the kitchen floor and not the carpet, but dog sick smells so bad you know? At least I made it here to see you. I wasn’t sure if you’d be busy this afternoon.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">Ben hummed in acknowledgement as he led Patty back through to the living room and sat at one end of the sofa. Patty was about to sit beside him when he spied something and ran over to the corner of the room.</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“You still have your record player! Mine broke a couple months ago but I haven’t been able to get it fixed because so many places are still shut.” He crouched down and started looking through the vinyls on the shelf below.</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“You can put one on if you want. God knows I don’t play them enough.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Okay, Bowie or Smashing Pumpkins?”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“I think Mellon Collie is in there somewhere?”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Ooh, road trip music. I like how you’re thinking.” Patty pulled the record from its sleeve, then put it on and turned to sit with Ben. The first notes of Dawn played quietly in the background as they fell into easy conversation, punctuating sentences with wild gestures and laughs, the topic of conversation flitting quickly between people they knew, events they remembered and stories of the past few months. A couple of times one or the other of them got up to turn the record over or put another one on, but the conversation was constant and comfortable.</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Do you think dogs and rabbits get along? I really want to adopt a rabbit but I’m not sure whether they’d get along with Tirra. Rachel keeps sending me pictures of Alice and Winston to try and convince me.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Oh, Rachel! How’s she doing?”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Dealing with lockdown a lot better than most, I think. I’m kind of worried for her, being in the US at the moment and all, but she says she’s fine and I trust her judgement. She generally seems to be the more sensible one of the two of us.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“She always was. Remember when we stayed with her on tour and you fell out of the window trying to get onto the roof? We couldn’t let you near a guitar for a week because you were going to make the sprain worse.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">Patty buried his head in his hands. “No, don’t remind me! She still won’t stop teasing me about it.” At some point during Twilight, Ben had moved closer to Patty’s end of the sofa, and he could feel Patty’s breathy giggle in his chest where his head rested. It was from this position that he glanced up at the clock hanging beside the kitchen door and made a double take at the time. “It’s getting kind of late, actually. Do you want to stay over tonight and watch a movie?”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Breakfast Club? It could be just like old times, and I haven’t seen it in so long.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Only if we make some popcorn and watch Ferris Bueller afterwards.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">Patty laughed again. “Same old Ben, huh? Making all your demands? Sure, it’s a deal. But you have to make the popcorn.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Ben playfully shoved Patty off of him and got up to go into the kitchen. When he came back, Patty had moved from where he had landed on the floor to put on the first movie, and was sitting with a pile of blankets he had dug out of who-knows-where, some of which Ben didn’t even know he owned. He sat down and pulled some of the blankets over him, looking expectantly at Patty, who started the movie when he saw Ben was settled. </span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">As the end credits of their second movie rolled, Patty looked up at Ben from where he had ended up curled into Ben’s side and was surprised to see him wiping his eyes on the back of his hand.</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Are you okay? I didn’t think the movie was </span>
  <em>
    <span class="tm6">that</span>
  </em>
  <span class="tm5"> sad.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“No, no it’s fine, I’m fine, I just-” Ben took a breath, “We used to do this a lot when we were kids. It’s taking me back a while.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“What’s wrong with that?”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“I miss you, Patty. I miss you and everyone else.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“But I’m here now, and you know the others would come over if you asked. It’s not like you’re completely cut off from us, and we can go out all together when this is over if you want.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“It’s not that. I miss... feeling everything with you. I miss staying up all night with you and a couple of guitars and laughing our asses off because you made another stupid mcr reference. I miss being a part of something. I miss your crazy schemes and the weird guys you befriended on tour and Foley’s stupid shorts and all those people who believed in us. Don’t get me wrong, I love this project and I love what I’m doing, but the transition from never being alone to writing by myself is kind of jarring.” He ducked his head to escape Patty’s concerned gaze. Patty, rather than being discouraged, took Ben’s hands in his.</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“I’m not going to promise that you won’t miss us so much, but I can tell you that you’re getting used to working on your own and you’re making some incredible music. You were meant to be in the band when you were, and I spent the best years of my life so far with you, but everything has to end at some point and it’s much better that it ended amicably and not any other way.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“I’m still not sure where to go from here, though. I just feel that there’s less of a purpose behind my music now, without you, like what I’m singing is empty and won’t mean anything to anyone. You always had that power to make people want to listen.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">Patty shuffled his body around to face Ben better and grabbed his hands.</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Ben, you are an incredible songwriter. You have written a brilliant record. I have been listening to it on repeat for months. I could literally not get enough of your voice and your words and your songs and you have the audacity to say people don’t like it? I can’t believe you.” Patty smiled sheepishly. “You’re beautiful and strong and perfect and the dumbest motherfucker I’ve ever met if you think you’re not any of those things.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">There was a moment of silence as Patty tried to think of something else to comfort him. There was very little he could say that Ben didn’t already know, very little that he hadn’t said before. They knew each other too well.</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Hey, do you want to go down to the beach?” </span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“It’s one in the morning, Patty. We can’t go out this late.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Never stopped us before,” Patty said, standing up and turning to face Ben, who was still swaddled in blankets and sniffing quietly, “Come on, the buses aren’t running but it’s not far to walk and I think it would be nice to go sit by east pier, you know? For-”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“If you say, ‘for old time’s sake’ one more time I swear I will never speak to you again.” Ben sniffled and wiped his eyes, but smiled and held out one hand for Patty to pull him up with. </span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">The walk down to the beach was spent in silence. There wasn’t much left for either of them to say that was worth the effort of speaking over the ever-present breeze or the taste of the coffee they had brewed before they left. Patty looked over at Ben often during the walk and knew that he was thinking about the past, thinking about how many times they had walked these streets together. They had been there at every hour of the day, in every weather, alone or not, and the cobbles knew the cadence of their steps and the sound of their voices as well as Ben and Patty themselves knew the lyrics to every song they had written together. </span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">When they reached the edge of the promenade, they wordlessly sat down together with legs hanging over the lip of the concrete sea wall, content to sit and watch the moon glint on the vast stretch of ocean in front of them. The wind had died off briefly, and the only thing they could hear was the gentle wash of the waves and the musical clatter of pebbles tumbling over one another in the pull of the outgoing tide. The seagulls and starling’s cries had long since died, and the air was full with the smell of salt from the Atlantic and bitter coffee from the cup warming Ben’s hands. The sky was dark, speckled with constellations Ben knew Ali would be able to name and the half moon suspended between them. The horizon hadn’t lightened yet to herald the sun, but they both knew from experience that it wouldn’t be long before it did and they would have to break the spell that had taken them back a decade for a few moments, back to summers and winters long gone but never forgotten.</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">Ben cleared his throat as if to say something, but Patty was surprised when instead of bringing up another memory, he began to hum a familiar tune.</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“Ben, are you seriously humming January right now? It is the middle of fucking August.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“So? We’re still in Brighton. The lights on the pier are turned off. It’s a starry night. It still feels the same as back then,</span>
  <em>
    <span class="tm6"> I</span>
  </em>
  <span class="tm5"> still feel the same way about you as I did back then.” He went back to humming, and Patty sat listening, watching the same waves hit the same shore they had for decades. Now that he thought about it, not much had changed. They were still doing what they loved doing, still just trying to make the world better, as much as they could. Patty sat contemplating it, contemplating their past and their future and the present moment, where they were watching the waves and humming familiar songs and time stopped just long enough for them to feel safe again. Safe from the threat of disease and war and disaster that had smothered the rest of their lives. And the universe truly seemed to care for them in that moment, because the breeze dropped off just as Patty breathed in. </span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  <span class="tm5">“I love you.”</span>
</p>
<p class="Normal">
  
</p>
<p class="Normal"> </p>
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